


The Worst Thing

by OgdensOldFirewhiskey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Angst, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Cardigans, F/M, Jealousy, Love Triangles, Mentions of Taylor Swift, Modern Era, Mutual Pining, Romance, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25552564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OgdensOldFirewhiskey/pseuds/OgdensOldFirewhiskey
Summary: The result of listening to Taylor Swift's "Folklore" on repeat, an unhealthy obsession with Harry Potter, and the fact that the name "James" was already in the lyrics. Loosely based on "betty," "august," and "cardigan," but it's jily. Muggle AU, modern setting.His eyes snap to her as though she’s standing beneath a spotlight. Her hair is loose, tumbling in soft waves beyond her shoulders. She’s wearing a yellow dress the color of sunshine. Her green eyes are sparkling, the twinkling lights above her reflecting in them like starlight.She’s beautiful.And she’s wrapped up in Benjy Fenwick’s arms.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 76





	1. Wrong (Betty)

**Author's Note:**

> Betty, I know where it all went wrong  
> Your favorite song was playing  
> From the far side of the gym  
> I was nowhere to be found  
> I hate the crowds, you know that  
> Plus, I saw you dance with him  
> …  
> I was walking home on broken cobblestones  
> Just thinking of you when she pulled up like  
> A figment of my worst intentions  
> She said "James, get in, let's drive"  
> Those days turned into nights  
> Slept next to her, but  
> I dreamt of you all summer long  
> …  
> Betty, I'm here on your doorstep  
> And I planned it out for weeks now  
> But it's finally sinkin' in  
> Betty, right now is the last time  
> I can dream about what happens when  
> You see my face again

**_Early August_ **

_Please, don’t_.

The thought comes immediately, on a wave of dread. He wants her to snatch the words she’s spoken already back from hanging heavily in the air between them.

But she can’t. Doesn’t. Doesn’t want to.

She continues, unaware of his inner turmoil. “I know it’s only been a few months, and I’m not expecting you to say anything back…”

She pauses, and James can tell she’s nervous. She’s twisting the ends of her long blonde hair, an anxious tick she has that James has noticed. Her large blue eyes are staring somewhere in the vicinity of James’ bare chest, her face partially buried in the feather pillow.

He wonders if it would be worse to cut her off or to allow her to continue.

“I love you, James,” she whispers, finally looking up at him.

Unbidden, Lily springs to his mind – her cheeks rosy, her eyes sparkling, her dark red hair golden in the light of the streetlamp. _You love me!_ she’d said, teasingly.

He did. Seriously. But he hadn’t said.

“I—” he chokes. “I don’t—”

Florence gives him a painful smile, her eyes averted again. “I really don’t expect you to say it back. I just… wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know.”

He looks down at her, vulnerability painted across her face like graffiti.

She’s kind. Beautiful. Lovely.

_Wrong_.

To save himself from confronting the painful knot in his stomach, he reaches across the space between their bodies and pulls her closer, the bedsheets tangled around their legs. He leans down and kisses her, willing himself to feel what she feels.

All he feels is self-hatred, instead.

**_Late June_ **

On principle, James usually refuses to attend these parties. For one, he hates crowds of stuffy, boring people. For two, he thinks Slughorn’s snobbery and preferential invitations for the rich and the influential is irritating at best – particularly when it involves excluding both Remus and Peter – and morally reprehensible at worst.

The last reason is far less principled, but perhaps the largest reason why he’s never come: he usually has something he’d much rather be doing.

Tonight is the exception. He’s standing in the corner of Slughorn’s end of term gathering with Sirius, who he’d dragged along on promises to play in a Rocket League tournament over the weekend. Sirius had kicked up a bit of a fuss about the whole thing, so they’d arrived late. The room is lit with twinkling lights to capture the feel of the warm summer glow outside. They’re both nursing cups of alcohol, and arguing over whether Professor McGonagall, their Physics teacher, has ever responded positively to any of Sirius’ attempts at what he calls ‘witty banter’ and what McGonagall calls ‘disrespect.’

James isn’t as absorbed in this argument as he might have otherwise been, because he’s scanning the crowd for her.

_She asked me specifically if I was coming_ , he reminds himself.

“You’re blatantly disregarding the time she asked me where I learned it from,” Sirius points out. “That _definitely_ implied she was impressed.”

“Or,” James counters, “That she was annoyed with you. One of the two.”

“Come off it, she never even tells me off. Just calls me into her office and offers me biscuits. I reckon I’m her favorite student.”

“Can’t be,” says James distractedly, spotting a girl with red hair who is, unfortunately, not Lily. “I’ve already claimed that position.”

Sirius appraises James’ unsubtle scans of the room, and gives him a look that contains a bit too much pity for James’ liking. “Mate, stop looking for her.”

James wonders briefly whether it’s worthwhile to pretend he hadn’t been. The knowing look on Sirius’ face tells him it isn’t. “She asked if I would be here,” he says instead, as though Sirius hasn’t already heard this hundreds of times before.

“Yes,” says Sirius patiently. “That isn’t the same as asking you to come _with her_ though, is it?”

“You didn’t hear the way she asked,” he replies. He doesn’t know how he knows that Sirius is wrong, doesn’t know how to explain the way Lily had asked if he were coming, the way her eyes were locked with his, the way her words were dripping with hope and implication. He just knows that he is.

Sirius sighs deeply. “If you say so, mate.”

James knows that Sirius has reason to be skeptical, for his well of patience with James’ infatuation with Lily to be running rather low. They’d been here before – James dissecting something Lily had said in passing to extract meaning that hadn’t ever been there, only to be crushed the following day when he found out she fancied someone else, was going to the football match with some other bloke.

It was all getting rather repetitive, even for James.

_It’s different this time_. He believes it. Feels it. Remembers the texture of her soft yellow cardigan, the sound of her laughter in his ears, the smooth stretch of skin on her hip beneath his fingertips.

As if to emphasize his point, the song playing over the loudspeaker changes. James recognizes the sound of Taylor Swift’s voice as it washes over him. “ _This is for the best…”_

James could laugh at the absurdity of the timing. _You’ve got no taste! That song is brilliant_. He can hear her as though she’s saying the words to him right now.

Emboldened, he says, “I do say so, I—” His rebuttal is cut off as a group disperses beside them to reveal her standing not far from him. His eyes snap to her as though she’s standing beneath a spotlight. Her hair is loose, tumbling in soft waves beyond her shoulders. She’s wearing a yellow dress the color of sunshine. Her green eyes are sparkling, the twinkling lights above her reflecting in them like starlight.

She’s beautiful.

And she’s wrapped up in Benjy Fenwick’s arms.

They’re both laughing and swaying slowly to Lily’s favorite song, and he thinks he can see a faint flush on Lily’s cheek as she places a hand on Benjy’s chest. “Benjy, you’re bloody fantastic,” she says earnestly. “You’re fit, you’re hilarious, what isn’t to like?”

Several things click into place at once, flitting through his mind instantaneously. That Lily had always fancied Benjy, had never much troubled to hide it. That moment at Sirius’ party last week where he’d seen her running from a room looking stricken, Benjy following after her. Them talking privately on the patio together.

Sirius hadn’t been wrong at all. He had.

James feels as though he’s drowning. He’s aware that Sirius has placed a bracing hand on his arm, that he’s saying something, but James is underwater so how can Sirius expect him to hear?

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he says to himself as they continue to laugh, Benjy thanking Lily for her effusive compliments, and he turns his back on them, walking from the room without looking back, placing his drink haphazardly on some table.

Sirius is following him. “James,” he’s saying. “She’s not worth getting upset over.”

The words are meaningless. James is walking to the beat of his thundering heart, his shock shifting over to something like betrayal and anger. “Leave me alone, Sirius,” he growls. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Where are we going?” asks Sirius, as they exit the school into the parking lot, the cool evening air hitting them. “Our car is the other way.”

“I’m going to walk. I’ll see you at home.”

“Mate,” says Sirius bracingly. “This isn’t—”

“I’ll see you at home,” he repeats more forcefully, trying to inject something that sounds like sanity into his voice. He even manages to give Sirius a small smile. “I just want to think.”

Sirius looks hesitant, uncertain. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Yeah,” James says, with a nonchalance he does not feel. “Fine. I’ll be fine.”

It is a mark of their friendship that Sirius does not press him and allows him to go.

James walks down the street of broken cobblestones, the pain crashing over his insides like angry waves.

He felt so _stupid_. He’d been so certain that this time was different, that Lily really had feelings for him, that they were on the precipice of finally, finally, getting together.

Anger toward Lily flared in him. He’d never blamed her before – it was hardly her fault that he was pathetically in love with her, was it? But this time, she had to have known how he felt, had to have known what she was doing to him over the last month as she flirted with him, walked home with him, and danced with him in the streetlights.

Was he just a backup option, then? Something to stroke her ego, to make her feel wanted and special and beautiful before she got together with Benjy?

He can’t believe he’d been so wrong about her. About them. About what was brewing between them.

He’d been _wrong, wrong, wrong_.

The sound of a car pulling up beside him interrupts the thrumming _wrong_ reverberating through his chest. “Hey, stranger.”

It takes him a moment to recognize her voice. He squints into the car and sees long blonde hair, blue eyes. “Florence,” he says. “Alright?”

“I could ask you the same thing, why are you walking alone at night?” she asks, teasing in her voice. “Did Sirius kick you out?”

“Something like that,” he answers, because anything is better than the truth.

“D’you want a ride?” she asks.

It’s an innocent question. Something anyone would ask. But James knows that Florence has had a bit of a thing for him, and that seems relevant, somehow.

“Er, I’m alright,” he answers.

She rolls her eyes. “James, get in.”

It feels suddenly as though she’s offered him an opportunity to dive into a different, calmer body of water headfirst, to escape the hellfire burning inside of him. And there’s a small, spiteful, angry piece of him that wants to be in Florence Rosewood’s car while Lily is in Benjy’s arms.

He gets in.

“Where to?” she asks.

“Let’s just drive,” he answers.

**_July_ **

“Are you sure?” he whispers. She’s looking up at him with wide eyes, breathing heavily.

“Yes,” she breathes. “I want you.”

It’s all a bit fumbling and awkward at first. It hurts her, and they go slowly. James tries to say the right things, to touch her in the right way.

Eventually, he loses himself in her.

She seems happy afterward.

James feels hollow.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

The hot sun is beaming down on them. James is warm. Happy. Content.

His knees are bent, elbows resting on them, his prescription sunglasses slipping down his nose from sweat. The waves are peaceful as they crash against the sand.

Florence is laying beside him, propped up on her elbows, her long blonde hair tied up in a bun atop her head.

He turns to her. “Why haven’t you said hello?” he asks.

“What?” she replies, nonplussed.

He jerks his head to the water. “To the ocean. It’s waving at you.”

She throws her head back and laughs, her melodic giggling ringing in his ears.

He doesn’t know why this exchange should irritate him, but it does.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

“I like those shoes,” Florence comments as they pass by the window display on the way to the food court.

“ _Those_?” asks James, smirking and wrinkling his nose playfully. “You’ve got shit taste in shoes.”

“Oh,” says Florence, looking hurt. “D’you not like the ones I’m wearing?” She gestures to her feet, which are sporting a perfectly lovely pair of trainers.

“I’m kidding, love,” says James reassuringly. “Just winding you up. Your taste in shoes is perfect.”

Florence’s brow wrinkles. “Are you sure? I didn’t really think about it, the shoes in the window weren’t great, I suppose.”

James sighs.

***********************************************************************************************************************************

“We loved _JoJo Rabbit_ ,” Florence exclaims excitedly to her friend Inez, “We definitely recommend you see it.”

“We told the waiter that we wanted our money back. I mean, really, there was a _hair_ in my soup,” she says, waving her hands wildly for emphasis.

“We don’t know if we’ll be able to make it,” she says to Sirius, apology in her voice. “My parents are having a birthday party for my sister, and we really should go.”

It takes James several weeks to notice that she’s started doing this – referring to them as _we_ , as they were of one mind, one single opinion, one decision-making entity.

He tells himself it doesn’t bother him.

All the same, he never refers to them that way. He wonders if she notices.

**_Late August_ **

He’s staring at the door. He can hear the rumblings of a party within it. He’d been imagining this moment for weeks – how she would look, what he would say, how she would react.

Now that the moment is finally here, it strikes him that this is it. These are the last moments where he can live in the comforting embrace of his imagination, where the path to her arms is the same as the path to her doorstep, where she returns his feelings if only he has the guts to explain them to her.

He breathes in the comfort of this fantasy for a few moments more, and then he knocks on the door.


	2. Borrowed Time (August)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your back beneath the sun  
> Wishin' I could write my name on it  
> Will you call when you're back at school?  
> I remember thinkin' I had you
> 
> But I can see us lost in the memory  
> August slipped away into a moment in time  
> 'Cause it was never mine  
> And I can see us twisted in bedsheets  
> August sipped away like a bottle of wine  
> 'Cause you were never mine
> 
> Back when we were still changin' for the better  
> Wanting was enough  
> For me, it was enough  
> To live for the hope of it all  
> Canceled plans just in case you'd call  
> And say, "Meet me behind the mall"  
> So much for summer love and saying "us"  
> 'Cause you weren't mine to lose  
> You weren't mine to lose, no

**_Late June_ **

“Get in, James,” she said, rolling her eyes.

He considered her for a moment, staring into her car hesitatingly. Her heart was beating rather quickly, but she hoped her expression did not betray her.

_God_ , _he was fit_. He was dressed up in nice trousers and a grey oxford shirt, the sleeves rolled up and his tie loosened in the carelessly sexy way she’d always admired. She remembered vaguely that there had been some ‘do at the school tonight, something that Slughorn always threw. He must be coming from there.

James seemed to make a sudden decision, because he strides confidently over to her car and pulls open the door, throwing himself and his long limbs into her front seat.

She tries not to show the elation she feels that _James Potter_ was in her car.

“Where to?” she asks.

“Let’s just drive,” he answers. It was music to her ears.

For the next several minutes, James is quiet. She can see out of the corner of her eye that James is staring broodingly out the window. She wonders what had happened at the party, whether he was upset about something.

She doesn’t feel like she can ask.

Instead, she says, “D’you want to see a film?”

He looks at her, surprised. “Right now?”

She nods. “My cousin works over at the drive-in cinema, he can get us in for free. I think _JoJo_ _Rabbit_ is showing tonight.” She shrugs. “I’ve heard it’s supposed to be good.”

“Yeah,” he says slowly, grinning at her in a way that felt much more like the James Potter she was accustomed to. “Sounds brill. But we’ve obviously got to get snacks first.”

“Obviously.”

She doesn’t remember much of _JoJo Rabbit_ , though she’d tell people afterward that she’d loved it. Really, she’d loved the sound of James’ laugh at the absurdity of the characters, his bantering questions about which snacks she liked best, the feeling of his hand on hers and then his lips. She remembers the smell of his jumper and the taste of his mouth.

There is a certain sort of desperate abandon about him that night. It niggles in the back of her mind that he’d seemed upset, before. That perhaps he was diving into this a bit too enthusiastically.

But she told herself that she’d made him feel better.

“You’ll call me tomorrow?” she asks as he exits her car much later that evening. She’d just punched her number into his phone.

“Yeah, definitely,” he says, smiling at her softly. “Night, Florence.”

“Night James.”

She watches him walk up the drive and disappear into his house. She sends a quick text to Inez before she drives away.

Florence Rosewood: Hey, you’ll never BELIEVE what happened tonight. Finally snogged James!!!!!

Inez Andersen: Omg NO WAY. TELL ME EVERYTHING.

Florence Rosewood: Will explain when I see you. But can’t get brunch tomorrow anymore, have plans!!! ;) ;) ;)

Inez Andersen: !!!!!!!!! I’m SCREAMING xxxx

James doesn’t call the next day.

**_July_ **

He was hovering over her, his hazel eyes boring into hers. It was as though one of her dirtier dreams had come to life. It’s everything she ever wanted, had ever fantasized about with him.

“Are you sure?” he asks, his eyes searching hers. He’s so considerate, so gentle with her.

“I want you,” she confesses on a breath. This seems answer enough, and he covers her mouth with his.

“James, I… I’ve never…” she mutters between kisses.

“Don’t worry,” he says soothingly, pulling back. “I haven’t either.”

“You _haven’t_?” she says incredulously.

He smirks at her. “I don’t know whether I should be offended or not.”

“No!” she squeaks. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. It’s good. You’re good. You’re great.”

He smiles that crooked smile she loves so much.

It’s all a bit stilted, a bit painful. But he seems to reach a point where he loses himself, and she loses herself with him.

She doesn’t finish, but she supposes that would be difficult on her first time. She sighs contentedly. Her first time had been all she could have hoped for.

She turns to smile at James, and finds his eyes look a bit distant, as though he isn’t really there.

She reaches out a hand and puts it over his, as though to hold him there with her.

It’s absurd, really. He isn’t going anywhere.

***********************************************************************************************************************

She loves the feeling of the sunshine on her face, the sand beneath her feet. She’s laying down on her towel, propped on her elbows, ostensibly to watch the waves. But mostly she’s watching him.

She loves the muscles on his back, his smooth tanned skin, his wild black hair that never seems to lie flat. She never wants it to.

As she drinks him in, she notices that yearning, desperate, panicked feeling flooding her again. She feels a mad desire to trace her name on his back, to show some sign that she’d been here with him, that they’d shared this moment together. She doesn’t know why, but she feels like if she doesn’t this moment will be carried off into the ocean, like the sand on the shore.

James turns to her, and she wonders if he feels it too, that slipping, falling feeling, but then he says something that takes her completely by surprise. “Why haven’t you said hello?”

“What?” she asks. His question makes no sense.

He jerks his head to the water. “To the ocean. It’s waving at you.”

And just like that, he’s broken her out of her panic. She throws her head back and laughs heartily, loving that he can pull her from her overthinking, anxious thoughts with an irreverent comment like that.

***********************************************************************************************************************

She wants to say something to him. She should, really. Inez had told her she was letting him treat her like a second option. She didn’t want to do that.

But somehow the words won’t come: _Why don’t you call more often?_

She’d missed two wine nights with her friends hoping for a call from him that never came.

She tells herself each night waiting for him that next time will be the one that she says something. But then he calls her and asks her to meet him at the mall, and she cancels her plans with Inez and doesn’t say a word.

It’s as they’re walking toward the food court that she wonders why. Why is she so afraid to ask for more from him, for anything from him? She should tell him to treat her better, to make plans with her with more notice.

“I like those shoes,” she says instead.

***********************************************************************************************************************

She thinks she might be overcompensating.

If they go to places together, if they recommend films and restaurants and books together, if they do things that couples do, that feels a bit like evidence they should be together, doesn’t it?

He’s sweet with her. He tells her she’s beautiful and kind and lovely. He takes her on mad adventures with his mates. He remembers how she takes her tea. She tries to take it all for what it is, to allow herself to hope that this is truly the start of something important.

She isn’t certain what she’s overcompensating for; whether it’s her own insecurity or an insecurity that he’s given her.

**_Early August_ **

She pulls back from his kiss, staring into his eyes searchingly. She’d known, in her bones, that he would not tell her that he loved her back. She’d told herself rationally, beforehand, that if he didn’t say it now it didn’t mean he never would.

She’d told him that it was okay if he didn’t tell her back.

She wonders if she’d been lying.

There’s something fearful in his eyes as she stares into them, and all at once the question she’s been too afraid to ask him all summer comes tumbling from her lips. “James… do you… do you see us being together?”

“Er, what do you mean?” he asks, running a hand through his messy hair. It’s an anxious habit of his, she’s noticed. “We’re together now, aren’t we?”

She breathes deeply, bracing herself. “I mean, just… do you see a future with me?”

She averts her gaze, the weight of her question weighing on them both. As soon as the words have left her lips, she wants them back. She doesn’t think she wants to hear his answer. A quick glance to his face tells her all she needs to know.

He looks pained, guilty. It’s plain to her that his answer is no, but that he doesn’t want to give it.

The silence swells. Finally, he says slowly, “I don’t know.”

She hadn’t planned to ask the next question, but it comes anyway. “Do you still have feelings for Lily?”

“ _What_? Lily… Lily Evans?” he says, looking truly alarmed.

She nods, her lips pressed together.

“Why do you think that I have feelings for her?” he asks her desperately.

She could laugh, if she weren’t so terribly sad. James has been in love with Lily Evans since primary school. It was partially why she’d never really believed anything would ever happen between her and James, because he’d been so fixated on Lily for so long. But then, he’d gotten in her car and he’d kissed her and they’d been happy, hadn’t they? But now she wonders whether she hadn’t missed something crucial, way back at the beginning. Instead of saying any of this, she lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Because I know you’ve fancied her for a long time.”

“You do?” he asks quietly.

“Yes,” she whispers, barely a sound.

“I haven’t seen her since graduation,” he says, irrelevantly.

This is torture. How can he make her force an answer out of him that she doesn’t want to hear? “I know. But… do you still have feelings for her?”

“Yes,” he says after a long pause, and the words are a pained whisper. “But I don’t want to.” He says the second bit almost to himself, with such sadness in his voice that she believes him.

She feels her eyes fill with tears, but they don’t fall. “I think I already knew that,” she says quietly, because it’s true. Her time with James had always felt borrowed, as though it didn’t belong to her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

She knows he’s sorry. Knows he hadn’t meant to hurt her. But he had, anyway.

She felt a great sense of loss settle around her, as she realized that she needed to get up, and dress herself, and leave his bedroom. She wouldn’t be returning here.

Could you really lose something if it had never truly been yours in the first place, she wonders?


	3. Glow (Cardigan)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But I knew you  
> Dancin' in your Levi's  
> Drunk under a streetlight, I  
> I knew you  
> Hand under my sweatshirt  
> Baby, kiss it better, I
> 
> And when I felt like I was an old cardigan  
> Under someone's bed  
> You put me on and said I was your favorite
> 
> But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss  
> I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs  
> The smell of smoke would hang around this long  
> 'Cause I knew everything when I was young  
> I knew I'd curse you for the longest time  
> Chasin' shadows in the grocery line  
> I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired  
> And you'd be standin' in my front porch light  
> And I knew you'd come back to me  
> You'd come back to me  
> And you'd come back to me  
> And you'd come back

**_Early June_ **

“Oh my god!” she shrieks, turning around immediately and covering her eyes. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was in here!”

“It’s alright!” says Benjy, but his voice is strained, and Lily knows it _isn’t_ alright because she’s just walked in on Benjy snogging _Regulus Black_ rather intimately on the top of the bed.

“I’ll just, er, go!” she says, still with her back turned. “Er, carry on!”

She positively flees from the room. She vaguely hears Regulus muttering angrily to Benjy behind her, but doesn’t pause to ask questions.

She’s weaving through partygoers when she hears someone calling her name, and realizes Benjy has followed her back into the main room of the party. The music is blaring loudly, some techno mix that all sounds irritatingly the same to Lily. She would complain about it, but it’s Sirius’ birthday and his party and his house, and he claims this fact gives him supreme rights over the aux cord. A battle she fought valiantly, and lost with dignity.

“Lily!” says Benjy once he reaches her. “Can we –” he gestures for her to follow him out onto the back patio, where there are but a few people lounging about on the patio furniture.

“Sure,” she agrees, and follows him out.

“I’m sorry you walked in on us,” begins Benjy awkwardly once they’ve reached a quiet corner of the patio.

Lily stares at him incredulously. “ _You’re_ sorry?! I’m sorry I interrupted _you_!”

Benjy chuckles awkwardly. “How could you have known? We should have picked a better spot.”

“Or locked the door,” she suggests, beginning to grin.

“That would have been… prudent.”

“Yes.”

“You’re alright, then?” he asks her carefully, his eyes cautious.

“Oh no, I’m brutally scarred,” she replies dryly. “I’ve never seen a bit of snogging before, I don’t know how I’ll cope.”

Benjy grins appreciatively. “Only, if you wouldn’t mind keeping it a bit quiet? I don’t really care if anyone knows, but Regulus…” he shrugged.

“Of course not. Mum’s the word,” she assures him.

Benjy smiles at her appreciatively and returns to the party, she hopes to resume his prior activities. She hadn’t known Benjy was interested in men before now, but it doesn’t strike her as surprising. Mostly it strikes her as supremely ironic, considering she’d been dreadfully infatuated with the bloke up until about seven months prior, when she’d turned her attention to someone else entirely.

It did feel a bit validating to know that the unrequited nature of her previous affections was entirely out of her control, though. Grinning to herself, she too returns to the party, searching for the new object of her affections, a task she’d been engaged in when she’d started this whole ridiculous caper in the first place.

She finds him, predictably, by the food.

“James,” she calls, and he turns and grins at her. Her heart does a pitiful little flutter at the sight of him, and not for the first time, she thinks that maybe she’s in a bit of trouble with this one.

They spend their evening cloistered together in the alcove behind the snacks table, wildly inventing drinking games to keep themselves occupied (“Drink every time you see someone snogging,” “Drink when you can tell that the song has changed,” “Drink every time Davey Gudgeon grabs his girlfriend’s arse”).

They’re well sloshed by the time the party winds down. Lily lives only a few blocks from here, and, anticipating her future state of inebriation, had planned to walk home. She tells James this, and he immediately tells her that he’ll walk her home.

She rather hoped he would, but she protests for the fun of it. “But then once you arrive at mine, I’ll have to walk _you_ home,” she points out.

“And then when we get back here, I’ll have to walk you back again,” he retorts.

“We’ll just be walking each other home all night.”

“You’ve cottoned on to my plan, Evans,” he says, with a rather clumsy wink that makes her feel warm.

They begin making their way down the road, the periodic streetlights casting circular beams of light between stretches of shadow. They’re both rather clumsy, but Lily doesn’t mind because that means she doesn’t need a reason to bump into him and grab at his arm.

“ _What_ was that effing music?” Lily complains. “I swear it was the same bloody beat the whole night.”

“Sirius likes to pretend he’s a DJ at a techno roller rink.”

“That is… specific.”

“That’s Sirius for you,” says James fondly. “What would you have played, then? I take it not techno?”

“Well I obviously would have had some _variety_ ,” she says. “Some dance music, some slower songs, some relaxing songs. I’d also have thrown in some good classics, like some original Britney, and classic Taylor Swift…”

“ _Here_ we go again!” James exclaimed, as she knew he would. “What is with you and Taylor Swift?”

“She is a lyrical genius and I won’t hear otherwise,” Lily sniffed. “We’ve been through this.”

“Don’t tell me we’d all have been treated to _Delicate_ —”

“You’ve got no taste! That song is brilliant,” she says, laughing.

“Just face it, you’ve got shit taste in music,” he says sadly.

“You’ve got shit taste in snacks,” she counters.

“Impossible,” he says with a cheeky grin, “I taste all of the snacks perfectly.”

Lily groans and rolls her eyes. “That was the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”

“Then you’ve got shit taste in jokes.”

“You’ve got shit taste in films,” she says.

“I’ve never once liked a coffee shop you’ve recommended to me.”

“Lies, you love them.”

“I hate them.”

“You love me!” she says teasingly, smiling up at him happily.

He grins at her. “You’ve got me there, Evans.”

“What would _you_ have played, then?” Lily asks, returning to the original topic of conversation as though their tangent had not occurred.

James smiles widely, as though he’s been waiting for her to ask him this question. “Easy, Eighties Pop playlist. All day.”

She groans again. “Typical, I don’t know what I expected.”

He grins wickedly, and then begins singing, “Clock strikes upon the hour…”

“Noooo,” she says, giggling madly now.

“And the sun begins to fade!”

“Stop it, I swear—”

He builds up slowly, ignoring her halfhearted pleas for him to stop, until finally he grabs her hand and whips her to face him, his hand falling easily to her hip. “Oh, I wanna dance with somebody!”

She’s laughing so much her stomach hurts, as he whips her around in wild circles, his hand pulling at her hip.

She doesn’t know quite how it’s happened, but somehow his hand has found its way up beneath her yellow cardigan and white tank top and found purchase at her hip. She finds it quite intoxicating, the feel of his hands on her skin, and she wonders if he notices the flush on her cheeks when he finally stops spinning her.

“See,” he says, as though he’s just proven his point beyond rebuttal, “That song would be a hit every time, whatever your favorite song.”

She thinks that maybe he might be her favorite song.

They chat about nonsense the rest of the way home, and Lily thinks her cheeks might hurt from smiling. How had she ever found him irritating? How was it that the sight of his smile hadn’t always caused her to feel like she was falling?

They finally reach her house. She stalls, not wanting him to leave. “I suppose I’ve got to walk you back now.”

“If you want to be chivalrous, then obviously.”

She laughs lightly. “I never said I was chivalrous.”

“For shame, Evans.”

He’s staring at her so fondly. She wants to run her hands through his stupid messy hair and tell him she hates it so that he’ll tell that her hair is a stupid color. She wants to capture this evening in a bottle and take it with her everywhere, like a firefly. But mostly she wants him to close the distance between them and kiss her already.

He doesn’t.

She wants to have another night like this, another night spent entirely in each other’s company. So she asks, “Were you invited to Slughorn’s party?”

James tuts. “Unfortunately. You’d think he’d have gotten the message by now, wouldn’t you?”

Lily hopes desperately that this isn’t a coded message to her, that she should get the message he isn’t interested in her. She presses onward. “It could be fun, this time. I’ll be there.”

“Oh yeah?” he asks, his eyes meeting hers.

“Will you be there?” she asks, hoping to pour a lot of things that she’s too afraid to say into her question – how much she wants him to come, how much she loves spending time with him, how the party will be shit without him.

“I could do,” he says.

She’ll wonder in the morning why she didn’t just kiss him then. If she had the night back to do again, she tells herself she would. The only explanation she has for not doing it is that James didn’t either.

“I hope you do,” she says instead, and she hopes he knows how much she means it.

They stare at each other for a few long moments.

“G’night, Evans.”

“Night, James.”

She walks toward her house. She takes a peek over her shoulder to see that he’s standing where she’d left him, watching her go.

**_Late June_ **

She walks into homeroom sleepily the Monday after Slughorn’s party, excited to see James. It had been a fun evening, she supposed, but she couldn’t help feeling disappointed that James hadn’t turned up, though she supposed he never went to those parties. All the same, she’d had a relatively decent time dancing with her friends and commiserating with Benjy about Regulus breaking things off.

She supposed her James-related plans would have to be relegated to another evening.

As she settled into her seat and waited for Professor Flitwick to take attendance, she overheard Inez Andersen muttering to Bertha Jorkins, “Friday night, after Slughorn’s party.” “What did they do?” asks Bertha greedily.

“Well, they went to see a film I think, I still haven’t gotten all the –”

“No, I mean, what did they _do_? Did they shag?”

Lily rolls her eyes. Trust Bertha Jorkins to seek out the details of her classmates’ sexual encounters.

“I don’t know, Florence said she dropped James off at home, I don’t think—”

Lily feels the blood in her veins freeze. She feels a bit dizzy.

She turns to Inez. “Who are you talking about?”

She doesn’t think she’s imagining that Inez looks a bit smug when she says. “Florence Rosewood and James Potter. They’re together now. Got together after Slughorn’s end of term ‘do.”

“How do you know that?” she asks, sounding harsher than she’d meant.

“Florence,” Inez says simply, and Lily knows she and Florence are good friends.

She’d always thought the phrase “her heart shattered into a million pieces” was a bit melodramatic.

She realizes it wasn’t.

She watches them walk hand in hand in the hallways. She watches them sit together at lunch. She’s glad the term is nearly over, glad she will soon have an escape from seeing him look at Florence like she’d once imagined he’d looked at her.

She didn’t know what happened. How she could have misread his signals so badly, how she could have been so dreadfully wrong about it all.

Her stomach feels like lead, and her heart feels so dreadfully heavy, but she thinks she does a good job of hiding it.

She doesn’t speak to him again. She’s not sure if he’s tried to – she’s avoiding him.

They graduate, and Lily is free.

**_July_ **

She eats more ice cream than is strictly necessary or healthy.

She buys a ridiculously expensive pair of heels that make her feel like a badass when she struts down the cobblestones.

She buys new clothes and a new fancier iPhone.

She buys a tube of black lipstick and decides it looks a bit odd with her hair and her complexion.

She downloads a dating app on her phone, and promptly deletes it.

She and Mary watch _When Harry Met Sally_ twelve times.

She finds the bottom of bottomless brunch.

Benjy and Regulus get back together, and then almost immediately break up again.

Lily and Benjy get pissed and rank every Taylor Swift breakup song based on how much it makes them want to lay on the floor.

She laughs, and begins writing short stories again for fun.

She and Mary get proper excited about the new flat they’re going to move into together in September, and begin fantasizing about the vast amounts of furniture they can’t afford. They shop for it online anyway.

Petunia criticizes Lily’s top, so she buys three more of the same in various colors.

She definitely never once thinks about James or his girlfriend or their blossoming love or his stupid hair or his shit jokes or his love for Eighties Pop music or the way he’d looked at her under the streetlights.

**_Late August_ **

They’re throwing a party. Mary says it’s a launch into adulthood party; Benjy says it’s a goodbye party for those of them that are moving away; Lily doesn’t care about the reason, she just wants to have a good party.

She gets control of the aux cord, this time.

Lily’s having fun. If she isn’t having as much fun as she was at the last party with Stupid Hair (as she’s taken to calling him in her head), then she does a relatively good job of pretending to herself that she is, and that’s mostly the same thing.

“Lily!” Mary calls. “Someone’s knocking at the door!”

“Knocking!” Lily exclaims. “Who’s _knocking_ to come into this party? Don’t they know they can come right it?”

Mary shrugs. Lily saunters to the door and whips it open, expecting to see anyone but the boy standing beneath her porch light.

He’s the same as she remembered. His messy black hair shining in the light, his crooked specs slipping down his nose. He looks disheveled and put together at the same time and it’s absolutely infuriating that he should make her feel this way when he’s quite nearly broken her heart already.

“James,” she breathes, because it’s _him_ and he’s standing on her porch staring at her for all the world like he’s drowning and she’s a life preserver.

“Lily,” he whispers. “Can we talk for a minute?” He gestures to the seating area on her porch.

Half of her wants to tell him no, that he’d missed his chance with her when he went off with Florence bloody Rosewood and to slam the door in his face. The other half wants to throw herself into his arms.

She doesn’t do either. Instead, she nods her assent and walks out onto the porch.

“I fucked everything up,” he says immediately. “I fucked everything up and I’m _so sorry_.”

She needs more than this, needs to know what precisely he’s sorry for, and tells him so.

He runs a hand through his hair in anguish. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“The beginning would be helpful,” she suggests coldly. “When you snogged Florence Rosewood after Slughorn’s end of term party.”

He flinches. “I think the beginning is a bit earlier than that. Probably when we were twelve and you told me you hated my trousers.”

She scoffs. “What does Florence have to do with your bloody trousers? Other than the obvious,” she adds icily.

“She doesn’t. You do. That was the moment, on the playground, when you marched up to me and told me my trousers were hideous. That was the moment I knew I fancied you.”

His baldness in declaring this shocks her. “What?”

“Of course, I was only twelve, so what did I know then? I didn’t know anything,” he says. “But I knew that I liked you, I knew that I loved it when you told me I was an idiot, the rare occasions when I actually made you laugh.”

She’s angry at him for saying these things to her, for professing a love to her that they can’t do anything about now because he’s with _Florence_. “I repeat,” she says through gritted teeth, “what does any of this have to do with Florence?”

“Because, I’m explaining that I’ve been pathetically, stupidly in love with you for _years_ ,” he says desperately. “And I never really thought you’d fancy me back.”

She feels her cheeks heat up, and hates him for it. Hates the way her heart accelerates, and hope begins to blossom. He’s saying the sweet things she would have loved to hear from him three months ago, but he’s ignoring the chasm of pain that separates them. Perhaps he knows this, because he carries on. “I spent so much of my time trying to convince myself that you fancied me, and I wasn’t ever right. I was always misreading things, hoping for things that weren’t really there between us.”

“I thought that’s what happened again,” he says, staring at her pleadingly. “After Sirius’ birthday, I thought I’d misread things. Because I did go to Slughorn’s party, and I saw you there, dancing with Benjy Fenwick.”

Her eyes snap to his. She splutters, “Benjy is _gay_ , there isn’t anything going on between us!”

“I know that _now_ ,” he says. “But I didn’t at the time. I thought you fancied him. I wanted to forget about you.”

“So that’s all Florence was, then?” she asks coldly. “A distraction? I don’t believe you, I saw the two of you together. It broke my fucking heart, seeing you together, actually.”

“We’re not together anymore,” he says quickly. “Florence and I have broken things off. A few weeks ago. It wasn’t ever right between us. She wasn’t just a distraction, I really tried to move on, to stop thinking about you, but –”

“Stop it,” she says, and indignation is swelling inside of her. “Stop it right now. You’re telling me that you jumped headlong into a relationship with Florence Rosewood because you made about a thousand assumptions without even once bothering to just _talk to me_?”

“I should have done,” he pleads. “I should have just told you how I felt.”

“Yes, you should,” she says acidly. “Because then you would have known that I spent most of Slughorn’s party looking for you, with every intention to snog your bloody brains out before the night was done.”

He looks miserable. “I’m so sorry, Lily. I know I’ve mucked things up. I know I went about things in the exact wrong way, and that you probably can’t stand me. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t come here and tell you that I fucking _miss you_ so much.”

“I’m not your backup option, James,” she says, still frosty. “I’m not someone you can come running back to just because things didn’t work out with Florence.”

He looks at her incredulously. “A _backup option_? Lily, you’ve never been my backup option. You’ve always been… god, you’re just my favorite person. I know you’re angry with me, and you’ve every right to be, but you have to know at least that much, don’t you? God, I’m still seventeen and an idiot who doesn’t know _anything_ , but the only thing I know is that I fucking love arguing you and telling you your taste is shit and…” he deflates, seemingly out of words to describe what he knows. “And I know that if there’s any way I can make things up to you, I’ll do it.”

She feels warm, this time inside her chest. She ponders over what he’s said for a moment, trying to separate her own pain and rejection and view it objectively. “You saw me dancing with Benjy and thought I didn’t have feelings for you?” she asks, seeking confirmation.

He nods.

“And you didn’t talk to me about it because this had happened before?”

“Too many times to list, actually.”

She supposes it doesn’t sound too terrible, when he puts it like that.

“I didn’t hate your trousers,” she tells him, because that’s the easiest thing to address and it wipes the pain off his face.

“Noted,” he says with a tentative smile.

She supposes she might be smiling too.

“And you’ve definitely ended things with Florence?” she implores.

“Definitely.” He smirks. “And your entirely imagined-by-me, fictional romance with Benjy is finished?”

She shrugs. “We couldn’t agree on the best Taylor Swift breakup song, things would never have worked between us. And besides,” she adds, “I fancy some other idiot.”

A grin spreads across his face, illuminated in the glow of the porchlight, and she thinks she might love him, a little.

“What a lucky bloke,” he says. He breathes deeply, and says, “So, do you forgive me? Will you still have me, even if I don’t deserve it at all?”

“I suppose you’ll do,” she concedes. “I suppose I might have missed you, too.”

“You did?” he asks, leaning closer.

“Dreadfully. Don’t ever go snog Florence bloody Rosewood again,” she murmurs, her green eyes meeting hazel.

“Great, because I’m only planning to snog you.”

His lips cover hers and he pulls her to her feet. His arms envelop her so warmly, so tenderly, that she thinks she might melt. How can it be better than she’d imagined? She’s falling, and he’s catching her, and the dreadful summer she’s endured feels like a blip on the horizon as his hands cup her face and she runs her hands through his stupid hair like she’d always wanted to.

She’d always hoped he’d come back to her, that they’d end up here. Because in her heart, she knew that her feelings for James were like a stain on her heart, and they weren’t going to disappear any time soon, no matter the amount of ice cream and mimosas she consumed. She’d felt discarded, rejected, broken, and now she feels snug and warm as he holds her like she’s his favorite person in the whole world.

The kiss tastes like peppermint and chocolate, and feels like the glow of summer and fireflies and streetlamps and porch lights. 


End file.
